Where do you want to end up today?https://jennifervolkert.com
The days and nights and everything in between
Wed, 19 Dec 2018 09:17:13 +0000 en
hourly
1 http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/16425928cd96ed7ab5e87ba8b448b8c7?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngWhere do you want to end up today?https://jennifervolkert.com
So does it bother anyone else?https://jennifervolkert.com/2014/01/14/so-does-it-bother-anyone-else/
https://jennifervolkert.com/2014/01/14/so-does-it-bother-anyone-else/#respondTue, 14 Jan 2014 09:50:06 +0000http://jennifervolkert.com/?p=243

Now I am far from perfect and in no way saying we must always walk the straight and narrow and never gossip or bitch about our friends once in a while, however, when you repeatedly talk shit about someone and make fun of them with your other friends and husband, try and find ways to omit them from events, go out of your way to avoid them, and then play best friend to their face and publicly write about them and how much they mean to you, you’re an asshole.

When you talk about gratitude and giving back and showing others the importance of kindness and love and blah blah bullshit blah blah you are a goddamn hypocrite! I don’t know if men do this to each other but why do women feel this type of behavior is ok. There is clearly something wrong with you if you can live your life knowing you really are disgusted by a person you pretend to like to their face and everyone around them knows it but that person. I’m sure we have all been that person at one time in our lives whether we realized it or not. (I certainly hope we didn’t know it, I did though) It is behavior beyond hateful and this person is someone who is supposedly well respected in our community, which is a joke to me. How is that even possible with this type of behavior. A person cannot have true ugliness like this inside and be a good person, not really. She may pretend to be a good person and do good things for others but she’s really just a hypocrite.

What do you do in situations like this, do you tell the other person the truth or just leave it be? I am inclined to leave it be. The last time I spilled something major, and it was really major, it broke up a friends 17 year marriage because I saw her husband cheating on her with some twenty something while she was out of town with their daughter. To this day I believe it is the reason she no longer speaks to me and truthfully I do understand, but I’m over it. I’m not the one that screwed the twenty something. Even though the messenger usually is the one who gets shot.

I think its in my best interest to simply stay out of it and let her find out on her own, if she ever does. Its none of my business as I am no longer friends with either of them any longer so I should just mind my own business and let things happen as they are meant to because I know she wouldn’t believe me anyway since she has her friend up her ass.

I wish as women we would spend more time embracing one another and lifting each other up and supporting each other in our accomplishments instead of being fearful and hateful and expelling so much energy trying to tear each other down. We could be so much more than who we are if we spent half the energy supporting each other that we spend gossiping about each other and ripping each other apart or even giving each other dirty looks in TJ Maxx and Marshalls. I cannot tell you how many dirty looks I get when I am shopping at TJ Maxx and one of these days I’m gonna slap a ho. And I ain’t talkin garden tool!

Every year we make these grandiose lists and spend all this time planning, determined to stick to the resolutions we’ve made. Why?

Wouldn’t it be a better use of our time and energy if we didn’t need to make them in the first place. If we did all of the things we wanted to do throughout the year to better ourselves and our lives all year long instead of waiting to make a huge impact at the beginning of each new year as if its suppose to mean so much more? Nobody gives a shit if we start a new diet every year and never last more than two weeks or make that resolution to go back to the gym every morning before work and last 3 days because damn, its too friggin cold at 6:00 am. The effort is wasted and the energy would be better used paint the living room or work on organizing the basement. I made a resolution a long time ago not to make any more resolutions because they were stupid. I never stuck to them and then when I didn’t I felt like shit because the guilt made me feel like I had committed some terrible crime. Why keep doing that to myself when I would much rather sleep in, in the mornings, watch what I eat all year long and work all year on doing my best so I don’t have to feel guilty.

We have enough in our lives to feel guilty about and enough pressures, we certainly don’t need to add resolutions to the list that we aren’t going to stick to. They’re a waste of paper and brain power. Go have fun and let go.

I am ten years old. I am riding a banana seat bike through the alleys. I am allowed to go as far as 31st Street, and then I have to turn back. Words cannot describe how much I love this bike. It is turquoise with sparkly flower decals and I ride back and forth through blocks of alleys singing the entire “Mary Poppins” soundtrack at the top of my lungs. My knees are scratched. My hair needs a comb. I probably haven’t brushed my teeth.

A man in a car pulls up. He opens the window. He asks my name. I have been well-trained. I have learned about good touches and bad touches in school. I know that good people don’t drive up to children on bikes. My teachers have been very clear. I take a good look at his face. I notice his red hair. I take…

]]>https://jennifervolkert.com/2013/12/24/on-feminism-anti-feminism-and-the-things-that-mystify-me/feed/0jennifervolkertGetting sick gave me my life back.https://jennifervolkert.com/2013/12/21/getting-sick-gave-me-my-life-back/
https://jennifervolkert.com/2013/12/21/getting-sick-gave-me-my-life-back/#respondSat, 21 Dec 2013 09:27:15 +0000http://jennifervolkert.com/?p=95Now I’m not talking about the kind where your suppose to save the world because your a super genius and you know your going to discover how to repair the ozone. I’m simply talking about having this gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach, this thing that you just know, whereby you are suppose to do something meaningful and important with your life. I have felt this way ever since I can remember.

I have always said I know I am meant to do something I just don’t know what it is. Every year passed by and every year I got older and nothing happened and I never did anything special or meaningful, at least not by my standards and I began to feel as though I were going to die without ever doing anything with my life that meant anything. Sure I raised a great kid, I have a great husband but I am not fulfilled in my work. I am not utilizing my degree and my job is making me unhappy, sick even and a change needed to happen.

Fear is an evil emotion. It can consume you and build walls around you so you are unable to move. It can punch you in the gut so hard you want to throw up sometimes and it can keep you from doing what you really want to do with your life because it tells you your not good enough. Fear was saying that to me.

I developed Celiac Disease a year and half ago after I visited an acupuncturist to help alleviate the pain I was having in a bulging disc in my lower back. She didn’t help the pain in my back and after the fifth session I walked, or could barely walk out of there because my knees and everything else in my body started to hurt so bad. I went to my bone specialist who I had been seeing for my back and she ran tests and took blood and later informed me I had severe osteoarthritis due to celiac disease. It could have been the stress of my job or it could have been the acupuncturist or maybe a combination of both but whatever it was, it was a wake up call for me to make a change in my life or I would be developing something much worse and I was determined to not let that happen.

I come from a long line of dysfunction and it has always been my safe zone. People with problems are my people. I have no fear with them and the need to help is something I have always wanted to do. When I found out I was sick that was my que and my degrees in social work and psychology were finally going to be of use.

I had been picking the brain of every one I knew who worked in the mental health field for months and after a year I was finally in a position with my company where I could begin looking for a position. My buddy fear was telling me I would never be hired without any experience and it would take forever and of course I listened to him. He wouldn’t steer me wrong, he was looking out for my best interest after all. I had an acquaintance tell me to send her my resume’ and she would pass it along to her supervisor because they were always looking for people so I did. Never thinking I would ever get an interview, again without any experience whatsoever. Gotta love fear. Needless to say, not only did I get the interview but I got the job and it is what I am suppose to do with my life. It sounds corny to say it. When you find your purpose it is so bizarre and amazing all at the same time.

I haven’t been truly happy in such a long time I can’t even remember what happy is suppose to look or feel like. It has been so long since everything in my life was right where I knew it was suppose to be. Sure I still have bills and the weather still sucks and I still have to deal with my disease everyday but its manageable and I know if it weren’t for getting sick I don’t believe I would have survived.